Ultimate Surrender: Lesbian Porn Not Just for Straight Sport

Curator's Note

Warning: Adults-only sites, NSFW.

Wrestling: the sport of choice for homoerotic spectacle, from the Alan Bates-Oliver Reed nude fireside tussle in Women in Love, to the catfight in a lilypond between Dynasty’s Alexis and Krystle (“like a couple of female mud wrestlers!” scolds Krystle’s husband upon hauling them out), to Turkish oil wrestling in an L Word episode fittingly titled “Lesbians Gone Wild.”

Engrossing as these soft-core throw-downs are, they’re no competition for female sexual wrestling. What the Lingerie Football League is to women’s professional football, The L Word’s babe bout is to Ultimate Surrender: more tousling than tackling, more faking than fucking. Hosted by alternative pornmonger Kink.com (whose mission is “to demystify and celebrate alternative sexualities”), Ultimate Surrender features “competitive sexual wrestling with hardcore face-sitting and strap-on sex.” In other words, L Word fans, we’re not in West Hollywood anymore – or the Valley. This is San Francisco porn: queer-friendly, more tattoos than implants, shorter nails and harder BDSM.

Judging from its authentic mise en scène, Ultimate Surrender makes good on its promise of “unscripted competition” if not “genuine orgasms.” In pre-match interviews, wrestlers assess their competition and announce strategy, as stats (including “forced submissions”) flash onscreen. Though dressed (however briefly) in string bikinis rather than singlets, and less butch than buff, they sport standard-issue footwear and live up to their on-the-mat monikers (The Assassin, Iron Maiden) every bit as much as the LFL’s ladies do their team names (the Los Angeles Temptation, the Baltimore Charm). After arm-wrestling for starting position – shades of Personal Best – the match proceeds in real time to sounds of grunting, panting, and squeaking soles. Wrestlers accumulate points by executing moves ranging from “reverse headlock” and “cradle hold” to “pussy rubbing” and “finger fucking.” Plays are subject to point additions and deductions, issued by a male ref who milks the double meaning of “scissoring” but blessedly never gets in on the action. Cinematography alternates between aerial and lateral views, keeping entire bodies in frame – more intent on ensuring athletic integrity than preserving the “frenzy of the visible.” Only in the final round, when the victor fucks the loser with a strap-on, do we get the girl-on-girl dildo-sucking and genital close-ups geared towards straight guys. It’s not the first time queer women and heterosexual men have locked heads over lesbian porn, but ultimately this time everyone’s a winner.

Comments

I believe programs like the L-Word and LFL are now mostly consumed by heterosexual males who have fantasies about lesbians. This is obvious for LFL, but L-Word, which tended to be though-provoking, is now an object of heterosexual male gaze, especially the oil wreslting one.

The Ultimate Surrender was refreshing. It looked very real. I wonder who are the viewers of this show…